I knew it was time to inspect the kids bedroom, under the pretense of ‘redecorating’ when a big sign appeared on the door “Parents Not Allowed”.  I made a half-hearted offer to voice their opinion on the decor, but Scott wanted black walls, black light posters and strobe lights and Frank wanted posters of trucks.  Another argument that would never get settled, so I decided to make the decision myself with brown and orange curtains and bedspreads.  The enthusiastic response was an indifferent shrug and a “mpph”.

So I put on a gas mask and entered the ‘inner sanctum’, literally shoveled out the model parts, dirty clothes and stiff pizza, in equal amounts, and that was just in the doorway.  I scrubbed the sticky red stuff off the wall that was either strawberry jelly or arterial blood; the spit balls on the ceiling which wouldn’t budge, (maybe they used super glue instead or spit.) Or maybe their spit WAS super glue?  I proceeded to ‘redecorate’.  A few weeks later while walking by I caught a glimpse of a black light , truck posters and a strobe light along with the “Parents Not Allowed” sign. Underlined.

Six-Hour Meals

It’s a fact that you should try to all sit down together for one meal a day, but with 6 kids in 6 activities after school, it turned into a long, long meal between 3 and 9.  In rural Ohio, the school system divided the sports venues among several small villages, which meant I would take one boy to wrestling in town A, one to basketball in town B, one to Karate in town C, then race back home to serve nuked plates of food in between trips.

That great spaghetti at 3:00 was okay at 5, edible at 7 and glue by 9.  Sunday meals were somewhat more civilized: there was no food flipping, fork stabbing, burping contests or laughing with cottage cheese in their mouths.  And they never said “Yuck I don’t like that” or they would get another helping.  That misfired once: Adam meant he couldn’t keep peas down …. as we all discovered.  If they didn’t like something, they would gingerly pull the food off their fork with their teeth.. no way would they let their lips touch something yuck.  The dog hovered furtively under the table to catch all those vegetables.  How did they ever get her to eat sauerkraut?

Sickie

Sick time with kids is scary and sometimes funny.  Adam, broken out in a rash to match his red hair, looked and felt very bad. I looked and felt very bad too when I discovered the medicine I was feeding him to cure the allergy was actually causing the allergy!  The couch was where sick kids were placed, since it was difficult to climb into the top bunk with a bowl of chicken soup. If they were in the barf stage I fixed them a nice comfy bed in the bathtub.  One day a feverish Frank was mumbling “I hear hot dogs walking across the floor”  I just agreed and told him I’d keep them quiet.

The boys were seldom sick but when they were it was always the night I was supposed to be the speaker at a banquet or the night before we were to leave for vacation.  Once Merle explode in red dots just hours before company was expected for dinner.  I put up a sign on the door “Quarantine for distemper” but they came in anyway.  When Scott started to recover from a flu event he tried to milk it for all it’s worth. “Mom, bring me some water”, “Can’t you get up and get it yourself?” “I’m a little dizzy” he says. “You should be, when I was in there a few minutes ago you were climbing back up the tree by your window.” B-U-S-T-E-D

Does it Have a Motor?
Girls have dolls and boys have tools, if a boy gets his hands on a screwdriver you can be sure something is going to be dismantled. It’s great when they learn how to fix things, but why do they have to leave so MANY things in pieces, and blow all those fuses? A neighbor was working on his water heater and 7 year old Adam was taking it all in (including the blue language ). Finally he mumbled “Does it have a motor?” and ever since whenever something breaks we all say “Does it have a motor?” As they all took things apart they learned to mutate… the sweeper sported hair dryer parts, the wash machine had auto heater hose and the cars ….. oh my.  The motors were dissected, transmissions arrayed on the front porch, dashes were furred and wheels were traded back and forth. During one major “overhaul” an 8 cylinder motor was set on an old riding mower frame temporarily. A new fuel oil deliveryman was filling our tank and kept looking at the motor… As he got ready to leave he said “Bet that will really fly when you fire it up.”

Disappearing Things …………

In our house things had a way of disappearing; dish towels were secretly used to clean auto parts, dogs, muddy tennis shoes and some things I don’t want to know about …… then they vanished from the earth.  Some of the boys were always building models and when they ran out of glue (every week) they would heat a steak knife and melt plastic parts together, so steak knives were very scarce.  When I finally found all those blackened knives stashed under beds or stuffed  inside bio-hazard dirty socks they were beyond salvaging.

Screwdrivers disappeared like ice in July and scissors were used instead.  I never had scissors with points until all six left home.  Out in the “wilderness” of Ohio they built a Fort. They dragged out a lamp (why did they need a lamp with no electricity?) a LazyBoy and various kitchen items.  At that time I had to resort to flipping hamburgers with an ice scraper and draining macaroni with a pool skimmer.  I’m sure the Fort held all those shirts they didnt like, the heirloom cup I never found, all 2200 dish towels and maybe Scotts gas powered helicopter.  One day when he wasn’t home it went up, up and away ……. never to return.

And then there was Frank …………….. his car door locked every time he shut the door, usually with the motor running. In the dark. In sub-zero weather.  Then after fixing up a van to put in a van show he opened the side door to show off the interior to the judges and the door fell off. So uncool.

The chicken socks ……. 7 year old Merle had socks with checken feet printed on them, and one morning while dressing for work in the dark Frank grabbed those socks.  When he took off his boots at the factory he got a big surprise, much to the amusement of all the other guys in the locker room.  Public uncool.

A few other uncool things:  You should always wear something under your graduation gown … Terry.  You shouldn’t shoot out the security light twice in one week, electric company didn’t approve …. Adam.  You don’t go back to school after setting up at the fair with beer cans in the truck …. Merle. You don’t sled down a hill with a creek at the bottom ….. uh, that was me.

dh

Scott painted a picture over it to hide all the cracks and I didn’t catch it for 2 years. Someone threw a shoe that shattered the huge aquarium in the kitchen and we all scurried around to scoop up guppies in teaspoons as they flopped around on the flooor trying to escape the cat who thought it was his private smorgasbord.

Scott collided with a tree on a Christmas toboggan and broke two ribs and the toboggan. Merle slid on the pool deck and imbedded a fish hook in his hand… and why was there a fish hook by the pool?  Then Adam slid in the back yard and hit a broken metal stake and sliced his leg so bad he thought his “Guts” were coming out!!!

DH